Mark Payton said he is no fan of simply slapping pdf scans into an iPad app. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Magazine publishers remain unclear about the exact ramifications of Apple's new iOS subscriptions rules on their businesses, according to Mark Payton, editorial director at Haymarket Consumer Media.

"The main problem we face at the moment is that I don't know if even Apple themselves in the UK know how those rules are going to be applied yet," said Payton at the Mobile Monday London event. "I'll be curious to see how that one plays out."

Payton said Haymarket is alive to the potential to market its magazines more as cross-platform content, potentially bundling apps, print and web access into a single subscription for readers.

Fast Cars app

The company has been experimenting on iPad this year, releasing two one-shot apps: Stuff DNA and Autocar Fast Cars. Haymarket has been using the WoodWing Smart Styles plug-in for Adobe's InDesign software, which Payton said was an attractive option as it fits into the existing workflow of Haymarket's design teams.

"It means we could put effort into making the product more experimental," he said. "Both of our first apps weren't simply a repurposing of issues that already existed – they were one shots."

He warned that it is early days for tablet magazines, in terms of the creative potential and business models around these apps.

"Our design teams, both online and off, saw the reformatting of magazines for tablets as a space where you could bring the best of magazine design, typography and narrative together with the best of the web," Payton said. "I don't think the tools are necessarily out there to realise that to the full though."

Payton said he is no fan of simply slapping pdf scans into an iPad app, as was seen in the early days of magazine publishers targeting the App Store. Ironically, though, Haymarket is currently seeing success from a service that isn't a million miles away from that strategy.

Stuff DNA app

"We've recently got onto [digital magazine app] Zinio for a few of our titles, and the numbers have actually been incredible: really encouraging," he said. "The tablet is ironically quite a good format to move round a pdf, and people are subscribing in good numbers."

Haymarket's mobile and tablet ambitions were ignited in summer last year, when it saw the percentage of people visiting its websites from mobile devices shoot up from 2 to 3% to more like 11%.

"A good chunk of that audience is iOS. We are seeing the growth in Android, but from a much lower relative base. It's straightforward – the audience is iOS at the moment, it hasn't made the big switch."

Despite the uncertainty around Apple's new rules, Payton said the market for tablet mag subscriptions continues to encourage experimentation, with no "sensible view" on what models will work best.

He also gave short shrift to a question about whether Haymarket is concerned about editorial censorship from gatekeepers such as Apple and Google, whose products and services may be written about critically in Haymarket's publications.

"It's not an issue – I quite like Apple's approach to some of the more extreme material out there actually," he said, referring to the company's approval policies. "It [censorship] is not really a problem yet. If you've seen the guys from Stuff, you'll know they certainly don't pull their punches!"